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Last Minute May Day (Baskets & Delivery) Tips & Ideas!

April 26, 2012 By Laura 9 Comments

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May Day is less than a week away.  But if you really want to touch some hearts and make some older folks in your life feel so unforgotten, this is a wonderful thing to do with your children!  It not only has the potential to teach them a bit of History, but it teaches them about kindness and compassion, as well.  What’s more, it couldn’t be more fun and exciting!  

 

PLANNING YOUR MAY DAY CONTAINERS

    Planning, putting together, and secretly delivering  May Day Baskets, is something we have done with our kids for the past 4 consecutive years, from 2008 – 2011.  Every year, the number of our recipients has grown. It can be done as simply or as involved as you choose, depending on the time or expense you’d like to put into it. While the traditional May baskets years ago were simply filled with wild flowers, picked special just for the recipient, we have really tended to get into the ideas for our basket contents! (Cheap affordable baskets can be found at any low budget department stores, such as Wal*Mart, as well as places like the Christmas Tree Shoppes.)  But you don’t need to.  The thought and fun behind it is not more or less, no matter what you give in the basket. It’s what you give from your heart, to their’s, that matters most.  

    So if just delivering a beautiful bunch of flowers is more the way you’d like to go, here are a couple of other simple container ideas I found on Pinterest:

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Most everyone has some cans in the house!  Wash them out, get rid of any sharp edges, punch some holes in the side and thread with some lovely ribbon or rope for a handle, and fill with flowers!  If you really want to dress it up, create a label of your own.  Consider having your kids make some drawings, and glue them on!

 

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Another idea is the traditional way…..making a simply paper cone.  There are beautiful scrap booking papers in any craft store that you can use.  Add some pretty trim, a handle, and the flowers, and you have a beautiful May Day surprise!

   Today, as we share photos from our baskets over the years throughout this post, we’d also like to share some other tips and ideas, in the hopes that you will be inspired to really make some older folks day!  You must know how much the little things mean to them, and this big surprise they find on their doorstep or door handle will be something that talk about for a long time to come.

 

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WHO WILL RECEIVE YOUR MAY DAY BASKETS?

May Day baskets were typically delivered to older folks years ago (on May Day of course), so this is a tradition they will well remember and appreciate.  Think of what older folks are in your life, who your children might want to deliver to.   Once you determine how many recipients you’ll have, you’ll know how many baskets (or other forms of containers) you’ll need. Some people to consider:

  • Grandparents
  • Older Neighbors
  • Older Folks you know from Church
  • Other Friendly Acquaintances
  • Anyone you suspect could be lonely or need a smile.

Naturally, for doorstep delivery, you’ll need to know where these folks live! Normally, the idea is for the children to sneak up to the door, hang the basket on the doorknob (or place on the porch where the recipient will see it when they open the door), ring the doorbell, and run like the dickens!! With any luck, they’ll get away without being seen, and the recipient will only find a lovely basket of flowers and/or goodies.

     BUT, another very thoughtful idea is to deliver them in person, to random folks in a nursing home.  Many older folks feel quite forgotten at such homes, with few visitors.  Just seeing your children’s faces will feel like such a blessing to them.  Getting flowers and/or other goodies will do their hearts so good. (And yours too!).  This is a great alternative if May Day turns out to be rainy too.   Consider calling a home to let them know you are coming ahead of time, and ask them to put together (your number) of recipients who do not have loved ones to visit them.

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MAY DAY BASKET CONTENTS

If you’ve decided to fill your baskets with goodies beyond wild flowers, here are some content ideas we have used over the years:

  • A Tea Bag Variety
  • Hard Candy (Consider sugar-free for possible diabetics)
  • Baked Goods from your own kitchen (Mini loves, muffins, cookies, cupcakes)
  • Pocket Tissue Packets
  • Prayer Cards
  • Small Short & Uplifting Story Books
  • Cross Word Puzzle Books
  • Tea Biscuits
  • Flowers
  • A scroll explaining the tradition of May Day Basket Delivery (A great time to educate the kids about this tradition)

Basically, anything that fits in the basket!  What creative ideas can you and your kids come up with?

Lining your baskets before filling, is another option.  You can use tissue paper, an open napkin, a cloth napkin, or even a new kitchen dish towel, which is a gift in itself!

 

BASKET TAGS

It’s nice to have a tag attached, that wishes them HAPPY MAY DAY!  That tends to remove any confusion of why the basket was left. They will realize it is May 1st soon enough, and put it all together. (And them SMILE, no doubt!)   Whether you sign your tag or not is up to you. Sometimes there is concern that the recipients will be frightened, or be afraid to eat the contents.  So if that is a real concern, you can sign them.  But the real fun is to let it be a mystery!  It’s also a wonderful lesson for your children, that we can do kind things for others, and not need to get credit.

    Here is a free printable tag I made one year, that I am happy to share with you:   MAY DAY BASKET TAGS

PLANNING DELIVERIES

This year (2012), May Day falls on a (this) Tuesday.  Since we homeschool, we have always rearranged our school work for the day, and made our deliveries in the morning, usually between 9:00-11:00 a.m.  But if your kids are in school, evening delivery is just as acceptable!

    Before leaving home, plan out your delivery route, according to where your recipients live.  Knowing the order of stops ahead of time makes for smoother deliveries. 

   Also important is to plan ahead WHO will be running up to which doors, and running.  We have 4 kids.  So rather than they all go up to each door, risking injury and getting caught, by tripping over each other, they decided among themselves who would do which homes.  This saved any arguing about the matter in the vehicle too, which could really suck the fun out of it all!

 

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I especially loved one idea we had last year:  Making little flowering window sill tea cup plants.  Along with some perfect size Chicken Soup for the Soul books!  The above photo is all of the basket contents, pre-assembly.  The photo below is them all together.

 

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Naturally, every year around May Day, I have taken lots of photos, from basket assembling, to the secret deliveries themselves.  Going through those posts always make me smile.  Especially when the kids were so little! So if you care to, you are free to visit the previous years blog post links, and hopefully dig up some more inspiration, to deliver some love, yourselves.

  • 2008
  • 2009-1
  • 2009-2
  • 2010-2011 – Did not blog deliveries, but last year’s basket photos are shown above.

     Following May Day last year, we decided it was likely our last year of planning and delivering May Day Baskets.  Reason being, 1) the kids are getting a little too old (and big! for this particular serving in secret, and 2) after 4 years, we’re not such a secret anymore! When you start getting thank you cards in the mail, you know they’ve finally figured you out! ; )  But, the lessons have been good for our children, and there is nothing better than the feel-good-feeling, of giving in secret! Our hearts are always open to new ideas and ways in which we can serve others, as God calls us all to do.  The possibilities are endless, and there are always daily opportunities in our lives, and yours.

  Acts 20:35
“In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”

Matthew 25:40
“And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’



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Filed Under: Celebrations, Crafts & Creations, DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Project, Free Printable/Downloadable, Free Printables, History / Social Studies, Holiday Crafts, Homeschooling, The Big Picture, Traditions Tagged With: Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul, Holidays, homeschooling, kids-serving, May Day, May day baskets, May-Dak-basket-delivering, May-Day-Basket-ideas, May-Day-basket-ideas-tips, may-day-basket-photos, serving others, tea-cup-plants

Flat Stanley Comes For a Stay With Us, In Plymouth, MA, from Oregon! | Homeschooling

March 19, 2012 By Laura 1 Comment

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Have you ever heard of Flat Stanley?  Or the Flat Stanley kid’s books his character is from?  Well I hadn’t.  Or I don’t recall, anyway.  Our oldest daughter does remember the books, but I have not been at all familiar with Flat Stanley, and neither had our fourth grade trio!  But we were about to get very familiar with him!  He was coming from Oregon, to stay at our house with our family, in Plymouth, MA, as an exchange student, of sorts.

001 This is the day Flat Stanley arrived, and I told the triplets all about their new and exciting project!  (Please excuse the bad cell phone pic in this one shot!) Flat Stanley was not only going to be fun, but he was going to be a wonderful homeschooling project, loaded with excellent lessons.

 

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This is our little friend Logan. Handsome guy, huh? He’s also so sweet, so smart, and the best big brother ever. He’s just all about love. His mother and I are  friends.  When she was looking for some hosts to send Logan’s Flat Stanley from his elementary school to where Flat Stanley could go and learn about a new area, and to take that info back to Logan’s first grade class, we were all over it!  What a great class project this would be for our younger ones! And what a great area for Flat Stanley to learn about! Plymouth, MA is a town filled with much American History!   We couldn’t wait to show Flat Stanley so many things, and see to it he enjoyed his trip. ; )

(Half the fun, was pretending Stanley was real.  And yet we learned even more about our area, right along with him.)

The following photos are just a few highlights of Flat Stanley’s trip here in Plymouth, Massachusetts:

002_flat-stanley-mayflower
Flat Stanley in front of the replica of the Mayflower. (Also knows as the Mayflower II.)

 

003_flat-stanley-plymouth-rock At Plymouth Rock!  He was very excited to see this rock he had heard and read so much about, in person.

004_flat-stanley
Unfortunately, Flat Stanley came at a time that is a little off-season, in this tourist town. He really wanted to take a look around this gift shop we came upon, but this particular one was closed for the season. But that’s not a problem when you are Flat Stanley!  He slipped through the door crack. He was looking for souvenirs to take home to Logan, and his class!  But of course, there was no one to ring anything up for him.

 

005 Stanley read this whole sign, to learn more about our area, and the historical events that happened right here!  It was a lot of reading for a first grader, filled with important facts and dates.  But Stanley found it so interesting.

006_flat-stanley-sagamore-bridge
One sunny day, we took Stanley down to the Cape Cod Canal.  It was windy and cold, but he really wanted to see the two bridges, the Sagamore and the Bourne.  The Canal walk/bike trail, runs about 7-8 miles, between the two bridges.  It was too cold to walk the length, but he did get to see both bridges!

 

007_flat-stanley-ash-wednesday Of course Flat Stanley attended Mass with us on Sundays.  He also received his ashes on Ash Wednesday. (Were you wondering what was on his forehead, until now? ; )

008_flat-stanley-superbowl-party He had a great time with us on Super Bowl Sunday!

He cheered on the Patriots with us, like a true New England fan!

 

009 Here, Stanley finds some great souvenirs to get for his friend Logan, his classmates, and also the teacher of his class.

He bought everything with his own spending money!

Stanley is so thoughtful.

010_flat-stanley
Since Stanley arrived with just a t-shirt on, the kids made him some paper-doll clothes: a warm jacket, and a New England Patriot’s jersey. (As seen wearing on Superbowl Sunday.)

The kids also wrote a really great report, all about Stanley’s stay with us, in Plymouth, MA. 

As their teacher, I was SO pleased with their report!

011 We had gathered together many great mementos to send back with him, to share with Logan and his classmates.  There was a nice educational Plymouth, MA guide book as a gift for Logan, and bookmarks for all of his classmates too!

012
This was for the teacher and her classroom.   Do you see the contents list?  Check out what they look like….

013 How cool is that, for a classroom to have?

014-flat-stanley-visits-plymouth-ma These are all of the printed photos of Stanley’s trip, in this post.

015 The kid’s made a photo album to send as well, using the photos, card stock, sticky photo tabs, a whole puncher, and silver twist ties. They wrote notes under each photo in the album.

That way Logan’s class could see all Stanley got to see while he was here, and Stanley could have the album as memories from his trip, and his stay with us.

In the end, we realized there were many lessons for the kids, in hosting Flat Stanley.  Here are some of the academic and social skill areas that were involved:

  • American History / Social Studies
  • Geography
  • Map Skills
  • Gathering Resources & Information
  • Organizing Information
  • Writing a Report
  • Handwriting
  • Spelling & Vocabulary
  • Addressing Packages / Post Office
  • and of course…..Being a Proper Host!

016
After a long good-bye with our new friend Stanley, we packed him and all of his belongings up in a box, and headed to the post office, to see him off!

It was a project we all enjoyed very much!  We hope Logan and his class, enjoy learning all about Plymouth, MA, from Stanley’s education here.

Have you ever heard of these Flat Stanley projects? Have you ever sent one to another state, or hosted one where you live? Share a link to your blog post if you have one, or just tell us a little about it!

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Filed Under: Geography, History / Social Studies, Homeschooling Tagged With: Catholic-blogs, Catholic-families, elementary-geography, elementary-history, Flat-Stanley, Flat-Stanley-Massachusetts, Flat-Stanley-OR, Flat-Stanley-Oregon, Flat-Stanley-Plymouth-MA, homeschooling, report, triplets

Our Homeschooling Year 2011-2012, Kicks Off!

October 6, 2011 By Laura 9 Comments

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Well, forgive me for the delay with any updates about our new homeschool year we’re in the midst of here!  Once we kicked it off at the beginning of September, we’ve been very occupied finding our groove, with our new schedules.  Things are quite different for us this year! With the kid’s respective ages and levels, life has opened up new and exciting opportunities, of experiences and learning, for all of them.  Not to mention new territories for us parents!  We have a high schooler now, for example, and with it comes all kinds of things.  But the younger ones are also following their passions and gifts, more so than ever.

Some of you may know this, but for those of you who do not, we are year round homeschoolers.  We keep a lighter (academic) schedule in the summer, and begin a whole new school year/grade levels, in September.  It’s always a very, very exciting time, as we love to plan out and begin a new school year!  We’re really blessed that our kids are enthusiastic students, who love school and learning.  This coming school year, was filled with more anticipation than ever, and it’s been as CrAzY and exciting of a ride, as we expected.

I always take the kids’ new school photos on the first day of school.  This year, it was almost a week later, but we got it done.  We have also ‘always’ taken their portraits in the school room, at the side of the cabinets.  But if you follow our blog, you may be aware that we drastically changed our school room set-up, and those cabinets are gone!  You can see the  old and new set up of our school room, as well as the style of school photos we were taking in all previous years, in this recent post.

So this year, I did all of the kids’ school photos outside.  These photos will be in the sidebar quite soon, so that new comers can see the kiddos who make up our homeschooling world.  In this post, we wanted to share with you a little about their (book) subjects they are studying this year, as well as some other little interesting tidbits of information.  In coming posts, we’ll be sharing a lot more, including activities/learning experiences outside of their academics, some deeper thoughts and observations I have had as a homeschooling parent, and lots of other fun and interesting homeschooling related posts. We hope you’ll join us for it all, with discussion and sharing of your own!

 

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This is our oldest daughter/student, Alexis Grace (14). Also known as {A} around the blog here.   She has been homeschooled (not necessarily at home…right? lol),  since 3rd grade, and just started 9th grade this year. We can’t believe we have a high schooler now!  That means I worked hard over the summer, researching, and piecing together a serious 4 year college prep plan for her. And maybe panicking, just a little. The girl scares me, and excites me, and makes us all proud, all at the same time!  She has huge aspirations, and her heart set on really great colleges.  We cannot let her down, and we believe in her, because she is so unique in her focus of her life at her age.   She is so faith-filled, determined, intelligent, tough, independent, and firm on the path she is laying out for herself.  What fascinates me, is it’s all a far cry from anything her father or I ever dreamed for ourselves, or were interested in.  But that’s why each one of us has our own calling, and why it’s important as homeschooling parents, to help shape our children’s character, and foster the calling they feel God has put in their heart, as the work He has meant for them to do, in their life.   It’s all about guiding and supporting them, to be the people they are meant to be.

Throughout this past summer, Alexis taught the 4th Grade Religious Education at our parish (2 weeks), and ran the games activity for the kids of Vacation Bible School (1 week.)  She also earned herself a Catholic High School scholarship, that has covered all of the expenses of her academic and extra-curricular school year. We’re proud of her, and grateful as well!

This school year, as a high school Freshman, Alexis’ courses are:  Language Arts (Alpha Omega /LifePac),  Algebra (Math-U-See), Biology (Apologia), History/Social Studies (Streams of Civilization-Volume 2 Cultures in Conflict Since the Reformation), Latin (Latina Christiana), Spanish (All Bilingual) , Art and Music (Piano – private lessons, and the Recorder – all kids at home.).

Alexis is also playing sports now, for our town’s public South High School! She is really involved there. That is a whole other exciting post. I could easily ramble, so I’ll save it, but suffice it to say it’s been really wonderful for her so far, and exciting for us.  It is extremely time-consuming on a daily weekday basis.  But I’d say we best get used to it and keep making it work.

In the light of sharing all of their subjects in this post, I feel it’s important to mention, that we live our personal faith, which is Roman Catholic. So it’s not a subject the kids study for school, but more something we are always teaching them, and they are always living and learning it as they grow. Just as we still are as adults, actually. That said, they do begin each day all together, with a Scripture, discussion, and prayer.  As a tool, we still really love Living Faith-Kids!!

 

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JackMichael (9), the first-born of the triplets.  Also known as {JM} around here.  He and the other 2 have the same academic subjects of course, being in the same grade level and age.   As I said, I’ll be posting more about what they love to do outside of their academic studies, and I’m excited to do so, because they are all so unique, with their interests and personalities. And yet, the differences from within their unique selves, meld together so well with each other.  It’s fascinating to me, to observe, frankly.  But anyway, for today, here are the subjects all 3 of them have this year:

Language Arts (Alpha Omega / LifePac),  Math (Delta / Math-U-See),  Science (Exploring Creation with Astronomy-Apologia), History/Social Studies (Christian Liberty Press / Our Nation Under God, and, History Stories for Children), Writing Strands, Spanish (All Bilingual), Latin (Prima Latina), Art and Music ( Recorder – all kids at home).

 

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Olivia Faith (9), the second triplet born. {O}, which we tend to call her 1/2 the time, ourselves. The boys especially, refer to her as “O”, a lot. And you know what she calls them, when she’s talking to the both of them? “Boys”. It always cracks me up, because there is such a motherly air about the way she says it. So….our own little baby boom is “O and the Boys”, I guess. It has a cool little ring to it, now that I think about it. : )   Oh, speaking of their names, and {name initials in brackets}, I know we’ve been a little all over the place with it.  The thing is, using initials for any sake of privacy or protection, is pretty irrelevant by now, considering they’ve been on TV a few times now, (related to our Catholic faith) as well as the newspaper, for different things. All times with full names.  On the flip side, I have found myself continuing to use their initials in brackets sometimes, for the sake of brevity.  As you can see, my posts tend to be perhaps a little lengthy, so I need to use all the brevity tricks I can.  : )   The kids are all well aware, lots of people know who we are by name, but the reverse isn’t necessarily true. (Especially around our town, and the people we meet and run into in person.)


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Shane Jacob (9), the last born of the trio.

(Reaching for ‘brevity’ now………..).  Shoot. I forgot what I was going to say. Ummmm. Oh yeah.  You see that beautiful little school desk in the background?  That is Michael’s, from when he was a little boy!!  What a treasure, huh?  That sweet and sentimental little antique is going to be another blog post coming up, that I am planning, as well. There’s some story to tell, and some specific things that are part of the desk, that you will not believe!!  Michael’s antique school desk, is not the only one we have to show you, either. So if you’re interested, be on the look out for that post too!

homeschooling-new-year-5 I am glad I thought of doing a quick ‘class picture’ of sorts, while we were at it.  I sure love my class!!

Honestly, I’ve struggled a little with this homeschooling section of the blog, right along. It’s a lifestyle to us for sure,  but one that is just so normal to us, I think…”What is there to blog about?”.  But I know there is LOTS.  Lately, my realization of that has really broadened, and in the process, I have realized why I am not as active in this section. Which is crazy, because I so passionately love homeschooling my kids, and living this life I do with my family, that it hardly makes sense.  But I see now where it comes from, and I think I’ll be sharing those thoughts very soon too.

So stay tuned!!  This homeschooling section should be picking up steam, real soon!   You should know, we love comments and hearing from all of you! But if you are a homeschooling blogger as well, we especially encourage comments with your blog-linked names, so that we can visit your stories and shared, comment, and connect with you all as well. Our hope and goal is that we are all an inspiration and encouragement for each other, in raising and educating our children, as homeschoolers or not. homeschooling happens to be the route we have happily taken, with a deep love and passion for it. So our posts will derive from that life we live, as a homeschooling family.  But proving a great education, however any of us do, is the more common thread.  So thanks so much for stopping by, and please DO again!  God bless you all!

Gosh, I promise I’ll work harder on that brevity thing, too.

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Filed Under: Foreign Language, History / Social Studies, Homeschooling, Math, Middle School Homeschooling, Reading / Writing, Science, The Big Picture Tagged With: Catholic-blogs, Catholic-families, Catholic-homeschooling-family, Home Schooling, homeschooling, homeschooling-blog, Living-Faith-Kids, triplets

Politics, the House Senate and Voting | Homeschooling Elementary and Middle School

January 20, 2010 By Laura 11 Comments

The exciting and intense campaign race for the Massachusetts House Senate seat has been another golden homeschooling opportunity to teach our younger children more about politics, the house senate and voting, following the opportunities that came with the the most recent presidential race.  Granted, we weren’t sure how much they could really grasp or follow at 7 years old, but they have pleasantly surprised.  If nothing else, with their interest and enthusiasm.  {A} is already rather informed on this subject, as she has a very strong interest in all Politics & Government, which she has elected (pun!) to study in depth this year.

house-senate We began with more general talk about the the government, a little about how it runs, and then got more into the purpose and duties of the House Senate. To help them get the visual of the state representing senators, we showed them this photo above that I found online, of the House Senate quarters, that helped them get some kind of visual.

img_0175 We took a field trip, to one of the (8?) campaign offices for Scott Brown, right here in our home town of Plymouth.   Note: Michael went back and took a photo of the office, as the parking lots was full the day we were there.  The windows were also full of Scot Brown posters. Our plan was just to stop in and hopefully get some buttons or something, and show them what a campaign office is like.  But we all got so much more than that.   We went in and a very nice woman started talking to us and our kids right away. We told her we were on a home school field trip, and that made her very excited, as she is a supporter of home schooling.  She took us right in and started talking to the kids about what they were all doing and why. The manager for this particular office also talked to us, and really educated us all about what their goals were for the duration of this race.   The office was jam packed with volunteers, making calls to promote and ask for a vote for Scott Brown.
They offered us pizza, bumper stickers, yard signs and even had the kids help make a phone call or two!!  What a great experience for all of us!

homeschooling-house-senate-voting They took our picture on someone’s camera phone,  and it emailed to us! 

On the ride home we counted Scott Brown yard signs to pass the time.  We put our sign in our front yard when we got home.

homeschooling house senate Over the next couple of days, the kids were quite the little political cheerers for Scott Brown!

homeschooling house senate Voting Day, was another educational day, through experience.  All 4 of them came with us to vote, and to see first-hand
the process of casting your ballot.  They thought that was THE most exciting thing!!  On the way out of the local elementary school gym, after voting, {S} asked us, “What do we do next?”  And I replied, “We go home, and bite our nails while we wait!”  But then I gave him the serious answer.

That night, knowing voting was over at 8 p.m., they were begging to stay up to find out who won.  But we knew it would be too long and late of a wait.  So I promised them I would wake them up when the final numbers were in.  I tried waking them up, and stirred {S and JM} enough to tell them the news, which was received with sleepy smile. (So cute!)  But {O} wasn’t waking up for anything. She was happy to hear in the morning though.

homeschooling house senate We will continue to teach them what we can about these things, and look forward to this book coming in that we have requested at the library. It may or may not be too elementary for the kids, but if nothing else, will be amusing, while still being educational.  Here is the description to this book:

In a big country, it’s not always easy to get everyone to agree on an important issue. So when Miss Tuftmore’s second-grade class writes from Moussouri, asking for a law to declare a National Cheese, the Squeaker of the Mouse and the Senate Mouse-jority leader have a lot of work to do. By following these congressmice (who live and work alongside their human counterparts) through the steps they must take, readers will gain a greater understanding of this important aspect of civic life — and have a lot of fun while they’re at it.

This delightful sequel to the Barnes’ popular Woodrow, the White House Mouse, told and illustrated in the same whimsical style, offers another detailed but easy-to-follow explanation of the inner workings of American government.

It was a wonderful experience for all of them, that we’re glad had a happy ending. (Well, for us anyway. ; )  They are very much looking forward to the mid-term elections, this November.  ; )   Their interest and embrace of our civic duties, is taking root muuuuuuuuuucccchhhhhh younger with them, than it did with us adults!  You have no idea.   We’re late-comers to the whole political thing.  But, as they say,  better late, than never.

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Filed Under: Elementary Homeschooling, History / Social Studies, Homeschooling, Politics and Government Tagged With: 7-year-old-triplets, elementary-homeschooling-election-year, homeschooling-elementary-history, homeschooling-elementary-house-senate, homeschooling-elementary-politics, homeschooling-house-senate, House-Mouse-Senate-Mouse-book, middle-school-homeschooling-politics, Scott Brown, triplets

Herring Run Faster Than Us – Homeschooling Field Trip

May 23, 2009 By Laura 4 Comments

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We are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful, historic town, of Plymouth, MA. (Also historically known as Plimoth.)  It’s scenic, almost everywhere you look, and as homeschoolers, it’s a world of education.  I’ll be showing you more of these parts we live in soon, but this is one place we  love to go.  It’s a great place to take a long walk, completely away from any streets and traffic.

On one is the famous Jenney Grist Mill, which has a quaint tavern and ice cream shop. (At this point in time.) The mill is only turning when they are grinding corn inside, making corn meal.

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Right across a drive way is a surreal little pond, that is just so quiet, it feels like it’s own little world. Quiet enough to hear the nature.  It’s full of wild life to spot. There are birds in flight everywhere, and a swan couple.  Fish, frogs, muskrats and turtles. There is also a bridge over it all.  This is where the herring are born, and come back to in the spring to spawn, by way of the lovely brook that runs through this whole park, connecting of course, to the ocean.

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The kids spotted a turtle.

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Heading back the other way out behind the mill, is where you can get a good look at the herring, during the spawning time of spring.   As they swim upstream, on their journey to the fresh water pond, they are abundant and easy to observe right here. Unfortunately, we were late going to take a look this year.  They come through mid-April to mid-May.  So they beat us this year, and had already been through, and gone, before we went to check it out this past week.  We’ve been in previous years though, and it is a sight to see!  Herring fish swimming and jumping on top of each other, everywhere.  If you look just on the other side of the slanted stone wall in the photo above, you can see the ‘fish ladder’, that many of the fish use to help themselves along.

We spotted a few fish, but the real active season had really past.

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The kids still re-read the herring information board at the location.

They really do have such an amazing life cycle.

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Continuing to walk along, it is just so peaceful and serene, following the brook all of the way, and going through a couple overpass tunnels, that  the kids love to make echos in. That part is less than peaceful, or serene. lol

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I love this photo above.  I have no idea what the interaction was about between{J} and {O}, but it just strikes me as a moment full of love and tenderness between siblings.

Just beyond this spot, continuing in the same direction,  is a large park, with lots of walk ways, another quaint foot bridge, spreads of green grass, and nice little benched areas to sit.

But we headed back to the direction we came from, because it was time to go get some dinner, and we had a long walk back first.  It was a nice evening for a family walk, but I was kicking myself for waiting so long to go, and missing the herring season.  We’ll be back here many times before that season rolls around again, because it’s a great place to take a stroll on summer nights, and throughout the fall as well.

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Next year though, we’ll be sure not to miss the herring again, and I promise to take lots of photos!!

Have you ever seen herring swimming upstream in the spring?

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Filed Under: Elementary Homeschooling, Elementary Homeschooling SCIENCE, Field Trips, History / Social Studies, Homeschooling, Nature Study, Science Tagged With: herring-run-Jenney-Grist-Mill, herring-run-Plymouth-MA, herring-runs, herring-spawning, homeschooling, homeschooling-nature-study, homeschooling-science, homeschoolng-field-trip-ideas, Jenney-Grist-Mill, MA, Plimoth-Ma, Plymouth MA, Town-Brook-Plymouth

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